Leah's stylus had gone missing yesterday morning, and it had taken much effort and time, including remaking the bed three times and searching the chest in front of the bed and going through everything in the night stand and by the bed and, and, and... Leah found it later, and I am still not sure how it got to where it ended up. Leah had a pretty good idea, but it definitely wasn't obvious enough of a theory to make us search there. Light coming through the blinds caught her attention, and she happened to spot the stylus on the carpet. I think it was the grace of God, as I doubt either of us would have searched that part of the room any time soon.
Perhaps it was The Strange Case of the Missing Stylus that freaked me out about the missing glasses. Maybe it was something else, like being nervous about the MRI I have this morning. I don't know, but freak out I did. What had happened? I knew I had taken them off and set them down on the bed. Leah helped me look for them for about 15 or 20 seconds before busting out laughing. "They're on your face," she told me, seriously nearly crying from laughing so hard.
I almost laughed. I almost cried. I walked into the kitchen to set up the coffee maker for the morning and felt my cheeks warm. I had indeed been wearing my glasses, even as I searched for them and grew frustrated over not being able to find them. I felt stupid and foolish. It was kind of funny, but also a little frightening. I'm not sure why I didn't realize that I was wearing them. I took them off to see if they were so dirty or my eyes were in one of their bad phases causing the glasses to be ineffective to the point that I couldn't tell the difference between having them on or off. There was a lot of difference. I could see quite a bit better with my glasses on. I should have realized I was wearing them just by how well I could see, never mind the weight and physical feel of them.
Not only had I not realized that I had them on or how much they were helping me see, but I had worked myself into a near frenzy trying to figure out what had happened to them and where they were, since they we not where I had left them. No, they were not where I had taken them off, because I had already put them back on. So I felt foolish, but it made me think about how often I do the same thing spiritually. I had never searched for glasses while wearing them before, but I have done the spiritual equivalent.
The situation begins to feel uncomfortable or I begin to grow anxious, and suddenly I begin searching for God. Where is He? Why isn't He there helping me? Why isn't my ever present help in time of need helping and providing me with refuge? Foolishly, I seek and do not find. It's not that He can't be found. It's that I already have what I'm looking for. I'm sitting in the storm cellar praying for shelter and freaking out over the wind that can't even reach me to blow my hair around. I'm already in the refuge. I'm looking for the assistance and presence of God as though it isn't there, or as if I left it somewhere else, while being in His presence and receiving His help. If He were to remove His grace the difference would be so apparent, but thankfully He doesn't go well, if you can't tell that I am helping you, I'll just stop helping.
He is there. He is working for my good. He is providing protection and shelter. He is holding me in His hands. And my forgetting that or failing to realize it does not make it any less true, any more than my forgetting I had put my glasses on and failing to realize I was wearing them didn't make them work any less to make me see. Today, let us remember that we are wearing our glasses. Let us remember that God's word is true and He is our ever present help and will never leave or forsake us, no matter what happens with our awareness of His help and presence.
Today's Unshackled Echo was previously published on
July 6, 2016 as Where Are You God?
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